Victorian Engineer. He has been credited with being as influential in improving the appearance of London as Sir Christopher Wren, and with saving more lives than any other single Victorian public official. In 1853-54 a cholera epidemic killed 10,738 inhabitants of London, at a time when the water-bourne nature of the cholera bacillus was not recognised. Then in the hot summer of 1858, "the Great Stink of London" overwhelmed all those who ventured near, or lived by, the Thames-including the occupants of Parliament. This gave some impetus to legislation enabling the Metropolitan Board to begin work on sewers and street improvements in London and by 1866 most of London was connected to a sewer network devised by Bazalgette. The east end of London was not included in the programme, and this area alone was ravaged by cholera in 1867. Afterwards people's attitudes to the causes of cholera changed, it was empathetically accepted that cholera was indeed water bourne. In 1870 the Albert and Victoria Embankment was opened, followed in 1874 by the Chelsea Embankment which protected Bazalgette's low-level sewer as well as a service subway and the London Underground Railway. New Thames bridges were designed by Bazalgette for the crossings at Hammersmith, Putney and Battersea. The extent of his contribution to London was recognised by his contemporaries, as the opening paragraph of one of his obituary notices shows: "Londoners who can remember the state of London about thirty five years ago, before those vast undertakings of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the system of main drainage and the magnificent Thames Embankment, which have contributed so much to sanitary improvement and to the convenience and stateliness of this immense city." He died in Wimbledon and was buried in the village churchyard. (bio by: s.canning)